


The Vampire Lestat Lied to Me (so did Edward Cullen)

by Netgirl_y2k



Category: Being Human
Genre: Female Friendship, Gen, Lesbian Character, Post Season/Series 03
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-07
Updated: 2011-04-07
Packaged: 2017-10-17 17:43:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/179490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Netgirl_y2k/pseuds/Netgirl_y2k
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The AU where the vampires successfully recruit Detective Nancy, Annie helps her stay off blood with the cunning use of tea, and being a vampire is <i>nothing</i> like it is in the films.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Vampire Lestat Lied to Me (so did Edward Cullen)

The morning after the full moon Annie heard the front door open and then slam shut. The sun was barely up and Nina hadn't even come up from the basement yet, so it was too early to be George.

"George?" she called. Well, you never know. Her only response was the sound of someone running up the stairs. Annie blinked away from the kitchen and reappeared at the bottom of the stairs just in time to see a shadow vanish round the corner and head up to the attic. "George, is that you?"

She nervously climbed the first set of stairs, casting a quick glance in the direction of Mitchell's room, before continuing up to the attic.

"Oh," said Annie.

Detective Inspector Nancy Reid was still wearing her police-issue stab vest over clothes that were spattered and crusted with dried blood. There was blood on her throat, on her hands, in her hair.

"I died here, I think," she said.

"I'm so sorry," said Annie. And she was, really, truly sorry. "Listen, it'll be okay. I can help you."

Nancy didn't turn round, or give any indication that she'd heard Annie speak. Annie wasn't sure that she had, or that she could.

"We'd arrested John Mitchell, and I came up here looking for Billy. I didn't see him coming. He ripped my throat out." Nancy gave a humourless laugh. "That really bloody hurt."

"Nancy..." began Annie.

The late detective did turn at that, giving Annie a piercing look. "How do you know my name? Why can't I hear your heartbeat? Ever since Billy... I can't stop hearing people's pulses, but I can't hear yours." Nancy took a faltering step towards Annie. "What are you?"

"My name's Annie. I'm a ghost."

Nancy took a shuddering breath that sounded almost like relief. "Am I a ghost too, then?"

"I think-- I'm sorry-- but I think you're a vampire."

"I want to say that that explains everything," said Nancy, "but it really doesn't."

Annie reached out and awkwardly patted Nancy's shoulder. "I meant what I said, I can help you. First thing is to get you cleaned up. A shower and a cup of tea, then I'll explain, promise."

*

As Annie was leading Nancy downstairs they bumped into Nina coming up from the basement, she was wrapped in a blanket.

"What?" said Nina.

"Nina!" Annie greeted her cheerfully, "You remember Nancy, don't you? Well, Herrick went all grr argh" -- Annie bared her teeth and curled her fingers into claws -- "and recruited her, so now she's a vampire. Isn't that nice?"

Both Nina, woozy with a post-wolf hangover, and Nancy, blood-deprived and dazed, favoured Annie with withering looks.

"Nina's a werewolf," continued Annie. "She transforms in the basement."

Nancy looked at Nina's stomach, barely hidden by the blanket. "Are you having twins?" she asked.

*

After her shower Nancy looked a lot better. She was sitting at the kitchen table, dressed in a pair of Nina's jeans that only came down to mid-shin and a hoodie of George's that came down to mid-thigh, with her hands wrapped round a mug of tea.

"Let me see if I've got this right," she said. "Vampires are real. Billy murdered me and now I'm a vampire. Ghosts and werewolves are real, you're a ghost and Nina and her boyfriend are werewolves." Annie nodded encouragingly. "And there's absolutely no chance that you're all bloody mad and none of this is true?"

"Well," said Nina, wandering into the kitchen, "there's an argument to be made for the being bloody mad bit, but the rest is true."

"Bloody bollocking hell," said Nancy.

"Exactly," said Nina.

*

The only two free rooms in the house being the attic where she'd died or Mitchell's room (that Annie was absolutely not ready to see anybody else using), Nancy was asleep on the couch, and the council of war had moved from the kitchen to George and Nina's bedroom.

"No," said George. "Absolutely not. You can't keep her."

"I'm not asking you if I can have a puppy, George. Actually, I don't remember asking you at all."

"Nina, tell her!"

"Annie, do you really think it's a good idea to bring another vampire into the house?"

"Nancy's different," said Annie. "She didn't even know she was a vampire until today, and she told me she hasn't fed on anyone."

"Oh," said George, throwing up his arms in despair, "she told you, that's all right then. And the not feeding plan worked brilliantly with Herrick, didn't it?"

"That's just it," said Annie. "We brought Herrick here, us and Mitchell, and we brought Nancy, and next thing she knows she's waking up in a hospital basement cold and alone with no idea what's happened to her."

"Isn't there a system for this?" asked Nina. "I mean, the vampires, don't they have some kind of mechanism for dealing with this?"

"You want to turn her over to Wyndam?" Annie said accusingly.

"No, I just--"

"Say she does stay," said George. "Say she stays and we all get attached to her, then she turns round and kills someone, what happens then, eh?"

Nina rolled her eyes. "George, Annie's right, you really have to stop talking about Nancy as though she's a puppy that we might have to send to live on a farm."

"I know," said Annie. "I can be her Mitchell!"

George and Nina exchanged a look. "Um," said George.

"Annie," said Nina.

"Eww, no, not like that. I mean, when George and I first met Mitchell, he knew more about the supernatural world than we did and he helped us learn how to live in it. I can do that for Nancy, help her learn how to be a vampire without going all bitey."

George and Nina exchanged another long look. "Are any of us really ready to walk out there and kill her?" Nina asked.

George grimaced and capitulated. "Fine, but so much as a hint that she's dangerous to Nina or the baby and she goes, I mean it."

*

"Vampires: Fact and Fiction," Annie read aloud. "Number one, you can go out in sunlight, you won't catch fire, or sparkle or anything. Number two, holy symbols are bad for you, stay away. Number three--"

"Can I just stop you there," Nancy interrupted, "but have you actually written all this down?"

"Yes, I like lists. Is it a problem?"

Nancy stopped staring mournfully into her tea for a moment and smiled at her. "No, it's... carry on."

Annie cleared her throat, held her notebook up, and continued. "Number three, you can't fly, that's only in films. Number four, garlic's fine. Mitchell used to put garlic on everything, that's why we never let him cook. Number five, being invited into homes, this one's a bit contentious--"

"What about blood?"

"Um." Annie flicked a few pages over on her notebook. "Yes, blood, best not."

"But, what happens to me if I don't... you know?"

You'll go crazy and slaughter a train car full of people, Annie didn't say, because it wasn't going to happen like that, Annie wouldn't let it.

"Think of it like quitting smoking, only without starting smoking, and instead of nicotine it's blood. Um, how are you feeling about the whole blood thing, anyway?"

"Thirsty."

"I'll make more tea," said Annie.

*

George and Nina had both gone to work and Annie and Nancy were sitting on the living room couch staring at the opposite wall.

"You guys don't have a TV?" Nancy asked.

"We were going to get one."

"And?"

"And then we didn't."

"Oh. Okay." Nancy resumed staring at the wall.

Annie nudged Nancy's shoulder with her own. "Tell me something about you?"

"Like what?"

"Why did you join the police?"

"I like girls in uniforms."

"Oh? _Oh._ That's. That's great."

Nancy laughed. "No, not really. I wanted to... I thought I could..." She turned and looked seriously at Annie, "I don't want to hurt anybody."

"You won't. I won't let you."

*

Annie appeared in the kitchen of Nancy's flat. There was something incredibly sad about Nancy's kitchen; the newspaper with the half done crossword on the table, the breakfast dishes in the sink, as though Nancy had just gone to work without realising that she was never coming home. Annie knew that she was being silly. It wasn't like Nancy was dead, apart from the bit where she was...

She plucked a bin-liner from the roll on the windowsill and went to pack the changes of clothing she'd promised Nancy.

Before rent-a-ghosting back to the B&B she did the dishes stacked in Nancy's sink, she finished her crossword too.

*

Before throwing out her blood-stained clothing, Nancy transferred her handcuffs and warrant card to her new outfit.

"That was why I came back here, you know," she told Annie. "I was going to arrest Billy, or John if he was still here."

"Herrick and Mitchell are both dead."

"Probably for the best. I hadn't really thought through how the whole arrest thing would work what with me being technically dead. Annie?"

"Yeah?"

"Billy wasn't Nina's uncle."

"No."

"You all knew what he was and you kept him in your attic."

"Nancy..."

"Mad as a bag of cats," Nancy said with something approximating a smile, "the whole lot of you."

*

"Casper."

"Hmm?" said Annie. She was sitting in the attic trying to bleach the miscellaneous bloodstains out of the floorboards. Nancy was watching her from the doorway.

"Cooper, he told me I had a ghost following me, I'd forgotten with everything... But that was you, right?"

"I can explain."

"It's okay, bit stalkery, but okay. I had a girlfriend once who was a bit like that." Nancy turned to leave, then stopped and said, "Annie?"

"Yeah?"

"You killed Cooper."

"I didn't want to."

"I was just checking: stake through the heart kills us. You left that off your list of fun facts about vampires."

"I, um, didn't want to end on a downer."

*

"We're out of teabags," Annie announced to Nancy.

"I think I passed a Spar at the bottom of the road," Nancy replied.

"And I should pay with what, my invisible ghost money?"

"What about George or Nina?"

"George is at work and Nina was on the nightshift and is sleeping."

"If I drink any more tea, I'll turn into a teabag."

"Nancy, you need to get out of this house."

Nancy looked sideways at the mural on the wall. "Yeah," she said, "I think I do."

*

As soon as she opened the front door, Nancy winced and shrank back from the sunlight.

"Oh, hold on," said Annie, vanishing back into the house and reappearing with a pair of oversized sunglasses with pink flowers patterned around the frames.

"You're shitting me."

"They'll help."

Nancy pushed the glasses up her nose and squinted into the sunlight. "As if the bloodlust wasn't bad enough, now it comes with a twenty-four-seven hangover."

An old lady walking a tiny dog past the front gate shot Nancy an alarmed look. "Wait, other people can't see you, can they?"

"Only supernaturals."

"Hungover and talking to myself, fan-fucking-tastic."

*

"Not those teabags... or those ones..." said Annie.

"Well, which ones do you want?" The shelf-stacker refilling the display of instant coffee nearby looked strangely at Nancy apparently taking to herself. "Um... bluetooth?" she suggested.

*

"£2.53," said the bored sounding cashier.

Nancy said nothing and Annie cleared her throat.

"£2.53," the cashier repeated, as though she'd think Nancy an idiot if she could work up even that much interest in her.

Annie elbowed her in the ribs, Nancy snapped out of it and dug into her pocket for change. "Was it obvious that I was staring at her neck?" she asked as they left the corner shop.

"Um, yes."

"Really obvious?"

Annie shrugged apologetically.

"Great, so now I look like a hungover pervert with an imaginary friend. I need a drink."

"Nancy..."

"No, a proper drink, in a pub, with alcohol. Lots and lots of alcohol."

*

"Do you know," said Nancy, returning from the bar with a drink and sliding into the seat next to Annie, "I think this ghost thing is just an excuse to get out of buying a round."

"Rumbled me," said Annie.

"You can tell me to fuck off if you like, but how did you die?"

"I fell -- was pushed -- down some stairs."

"Boyfriend?"

"Fiancé. How did you know?"

"I was a detective, you know, once upon a time. Did the police get the bastard?"

"He turned himself in."

"Oh."

"I told him I'd hunt him to the ends of the earth if he didn't."

Nancy grinned at that. "Remind me never to make an enemy of you."

*

Several bottles of beer later Nancy asked, "Is it totally shit, people not being able to see you?"

"No! I mean it was at first, but now there's George and Nina, and they're going to have a baby which is so amazing. And there is -- was -- Mitchell. And now you, it's... " Annie hesitated. "It's a bit shit, yeah."

Nancy raised her bottle in salute. "To life being a bit shit."

"You're not worried about people thinking you're talking to yourself anymore?"

"We're in a pub on Barry Island in the middle of the day, I doubt I'm the only one talking to myself."

*

"Where are you going?" Annie asked as Nancy slid out of her seat.

"Loo, and just so you know, that was..."

"A little stalkerish again?"

"Yeah. Back in a sec."

Annie waited. The barman came over, collected the empty bottles and wiped the table. Annie drummed her fingernails on the table and looked at the clock. She got up and headed to the ladies. It wasn't stalking, it was just that Nancy had had quite a lot to drink, what if she was being sick?

Nancy wasn't being sick. She had a girl, who Annie recognised as the one who'd been wandering round the pub collecting glasses all afternoon, pressed up against the wall, and was nuzzling her neck. The girl yelped, "Careful with your teeth, love."

Annie grabbed Nancy around the waist and wrenched her back. The girl got her first look at Nancy's face, all black eyes and fangs. She screamed.

"Get out of here," Annie ordered. The girl wasn't a supernatural, she couldn't have heard Annie, but she apparently didn't need telling as she sidled along the opposite wall and bolted through the door.

Nancy's face returned to normal. She half collapsed against Annie and pressed her face into the crook of her shoulder. "I feel like I'm going mad."

*

Annie was sitting cross-legged at the foot of the bed in the attic when Nancy came round with a groan. "Hungover?" she asked.

After making a valiant attempt to suffocate herself with the duvet, Nancy cracked one eye open and asked, "What was I drinking last night?" There was a long pause and she continued, "And that question's suddenly more loaded than it ever was before. That girl in the pub...?"

"You didn't bite her. You frightened her, though, you upset her."

"Shit!"

"Okay," said Annie. "New rule, no alcohol, nothing that lowers inhibitions, at least not until we've got your cravings more under control."

"Looks like I'm properly on the wagon. No blood, no beer, at least there's still sex."

"Um," said Annie awkwardly.

Nancy propped herself up on her elbows. "You're shitting me."

"Sorry."

Nancy threw herself back onto the mattress with a huff. "You can just stake me now."

*

Annie recruited George to help her retrieve Nancy's television from her flat.

"Does this feel like stealing to you?"

"She gave us the keys, George."

"Still."

"It's Nancy's tv. Anyway, It'll give her something to do, I think she's about three days away from killing someone just for a break from the boredom."

George looked alarmed and hoisted the television up.

*

"Does my face do that, when I'm hungry?" Nancy asked, halfway through the Buffy the Vampire Slayer rerun she and Annie had found to watch.

"No, it's more scary black eyes and fangs. Oh, and foam, sometimes you froth at the mouth a bit."

"Sounds attractive."

*

Annie found Nancy sitting staring at the phone in her hand. "Call someone?"

"My mum."

"How did it go?"

"It didn't, I hung up on her. She hates that."

"Don't you want to speak to her?"

"It's complicated. She'll tell me to come home for a visit, I'll say no, she'll insist, I'll forget that I'm a grown vampire with a mind of my own and give in. It's as though she has evil powers."

"Evil mum powers," said Annie, "I remember them well. I do think it's a good idea, though, visiting your mum."

*

"I'm not sure this is a good idea," George said dubiously. "I mean, visiting your mum..."

"It's all right, Annie's going to come along to make sure I don't eat anyone."

"Nancy, that's not why I'm coming," Annie insisted, shaking her head vigorously, then as soon as Nancy had turned her back she nodded at George, yep, that was kind of why she was going.

"Anyway," said Nancy, "my mother's always complaining that I never bring women home to meet her."

George waggled his eyebrows suggestively at Annie. "Oh, shut up," she mouthed at him.

*

Nancy parked the car outside her mother's house. "Right, you might have to stop me from killing my stepdad."

"Uh," said Annie, "do you want to kill him?"

"Usually, but it predates the vampire stuff so it's probably nothing to worry about. Right, let's do this thing."

A middle-aged man whom Annie took to be Nancy's stepfather opened the door. "Nancy."

"Alex."

"Your mother's upstairs. Catherine, your daughter's here." Alex looked over Nancy's shoulders. "No boyfriend with you?"

"I've told you, I'm a--"

"Lesbian, so you say."

"I was going to say vampire," Nancy grumbled under her breath.

"Nancy!" An older woman came rushing down the stairs. "Alex, let the girl in the house." Nancy's mother barreled past her husband and collided with Nancy in a hug that nearly knocked them both off the front step.

"Hi, mum," Nancy rolled her eyes at Annie over her mother's shoulder, but she looked happier than she had in all the time that Annie had known her.

"Come in, come in." Nancy's mum hustled her daughter into the house.

"Mirror," Annie hissed. Nancy dropped to one knee beneath the mirror in the hall, muttering something about an untied shoelace, before anyone could notice her exciting new lack of a reflection.

Okay, this was going to be slightly more complicated than Annie had originally anticipated, but that didn't mean that it wasn't a good idea.

*

"No girlfriends on the horizon?" Catherine asked hopefully as Nancy and Alex both picked at their dinners.

"I don't get out much these days," Nancy replied. "Not much happening in Barry, you know."

"How's work?"

"I'm taking some time off, there was a... difficult arrest."

Alex grunted. "The Box Tunnel murders, I saw that your lot caught the bastard."

"What kind of monster could do such a thing?" Catherine wondered.

Nancy shot a concerned look at Annie. "You know what we don't talk about enough? Why I don't have a girlfriend."

*

Annie ghosted into the back garden to find Nancy sitting on a swing set that looked like it had been there since her childhood.

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I just needed some fresh air."

Annie sat on the swing next to Nancy and pushed backwards and forwards on her heels. "You're not feeling all--" she bared her teeth in an imitation snarl.

"No. Actually, really, no. For the first time since Billy I'm not hungry. I think my parents have successfully killed my bloodlust. Always knew they'd be good for something."

"Your mum's really nice," Annie said. "She seems pretty cool about you being gay."

"Yeah," Nancy sounded wistful. "She just wants the best for me. I could probably tell her about the whole vampire thing and her first question would be to ask if I was happy. Of course her second would be to ask if I'd met any nice vampire girls recently."

"That does seem to be sort of theme," said Annie.

"If you weren't invisible to my parents, I'd introduce you as my girlfriend, get them to shut up for five bloody minutes."

"Nancy," Annie began awkwardly, "I know we've been spending a lot of time together and I don't want you to get the wrong idea."

Nancy gave a snort of laughter. "You're not my type. I never went for straight girls, especially not dead straight girls."

"Please," said Annie with a roll of her eyes, "you should be so lucky."

"Nancy!" Catherine called from the back door. "Who are you talking to?"

"No-one, mum."

"Well come inside and help with the washing up."

"Films have lied to me about how cool being a vampire was going to be," Nancy said mournfully to Annie before trailing her mother inside.

*

"How was it?" Nina asked as soon as Annie and Nancy came through the door.

"Great," answered Nancy. "Three days of dodging reflective surfaces and wanting to kill my stepdad. I'm going to have a shower."

"Great," answered Annie genuinely, "it was really, really great."

*

Nancy turned her warrant card over and over in her hands. "What do you think about me going back to work?"

"With the police?" said Annie, flicking the kettle on and reaching for a box of teabags.

"No, at Starbucks. Yes, with the police."

"All right, tea, then we'll make a list, pros and cons."

"Again with the lists?"

"Don't mock the lists."

*

"Right, I'll start," said Nancy, sitting at the kitchen table stirring sugar into her tea. "Con: I'll probably have to explain away the whole being dead thing."

"I don't think so," said Annie. "I mean no-one's come looking for you. Maybe whoever covered up what happened here has also explained what happened to you. On the other hand, you will probably have to explain skiving off for weeks and weeks."

"Ah ha, but that's what the police union is for. Pro: it'll get me out of the house. No offence, but if I have to drink another cup of tea while watching another bastarding episode of Countdown I'm going to start climbing the walls."

"Pro: it'll get you out of the house and let me watch Countdown in peace."

"Ha ha," Nancy said drily. "Con: other vampires. I'm guessing that Cooper wasn't the only one?"

"No, Mitchell said... He said vampires had a system, for covering up vampire crimes."

"Like what happened to me? That's why no-one's come looking. Right then, pro: I could knock that on the head."

"Seriously?" said Annie, looking curiously at Nancy.

"I mean, I have to at least try. There have always been pricks in the police, but fucking vampires..."

"Alright, con: crime scenes, you couldn't avoid blood all the time. I've seen CSI."

Nancy shrugged. "I'd be back in homicide, it's not like I could hurt anybody more than had already been done."

"And you're serious about taking on the vampires. You can't do that alone."

"You're probably right," said Nancy thoughtfully. "Do you think Nina might want to join the police?"

Annie threw a teabag at her.

*

The morning before her first day back at work Nancy slammed out of the bathroom tying her blonde hair back in a messy knot. "Fucking lack of reflection," she swore.

"Films still lying to you?" Annie asked with a smile.

"Constantly."

*

"Are you sure about this?" Nina asked, "Both of you."

"Yes," said Annie.

"Um, yeah," said Nancy, sounding slightly less sure.

Nina rolled her eyes. "It's like living with Randall and bloody Hopkirk (Deceased)."

*

"Nancy!" the police desk sergeant exclaimed when they walked into the station. "Welcome back--"

The sergeant was interrupted by a firm voice. "DI Reid, I don't believe we've met. I arrived after you met with your unfortunate accident."

The sergeant nervously began, "Nancy, this is Mr. Wyndam, he's a--"

"Vampire," said Annie.

"Consultant," said Wyndam. "I'm sure you have some work to be getting on with, Sergeant."

"Oh, um, yes. We're glad to have you back, Nancy."

"That we are, DI Reid." Wyndam waited until the sergeant was certainly out of earshot before saying, "And your pet ghost. I'm afraid we can't spare you a desk, Casper. You'll have to share. Think of it as hotdesking."

"What are you still doing here, Wyndam?"

Wyndam turned his cold stare on Annie. If not for the fact that she was already a ghost she would have shivered. "You deprived me of my attack dog, Casper. You and your puppies. But I think DI Reid here will make a," his eyes flicked back to Nancy, "most acceptable substitute."

"Fuck off," said Nancy.

"You'll change your mind. You're one of us, you can't fight it forever. You belong on the side of the angels."

Nancy glanced at Annie. "I think I already am, thanks."

Wyndam shrugged. "You'll change your mind, find me when you do. Until then, carry on, fight crime, protect the packed lunches."

"Changed your mind about this?" Nancy asked after Wyndam had gone.

"No chance. You?"

"No. Let's get to work."

"Crimes to solve, evil vampires to defeat."

Nancy shrugged. "More like tea to make, paperwork to fill in."

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] The Vampire Lestat Lied to Me (so did Edward Cullen)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9257999) by [sophinisba](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sophinisba/pseuds/sophinisba)




End file.
